11–20 of 214 posts
I've never seen much point in caring about movie ratings. I find very little correlation between my own perception of a movie and the ratings; whether from "professional" critics, or the generic crowd-sourced ones. I just watch stuff that sounds interesting to me. Sure, you hit some stinkers here and there, but I find that acceptable.
I've never seen much point in caring about movie ratings. I find very little correlation between my own perception of a movie and the ratings; whether from "professional" critics, or the generic crowd-sourced ones. I just watch stuff that sounds interesting to me. Sure, you hit some stinkers here and there, but I find that acceptable.
Similarity of reviewers to you, ratings by those people similar. Who cares what the masses think...you care about the people you trust and who have tastes most similar to yours.
I'm wary of any website that offers reviews for things they are also trying to sell, like those online systems for buying games (Playstation Network comes to mind). Why would a profit-driven enterprise allow anything to create a negative impression for the user? Amazon seems okay because they have such a wide variety of items: They're getting paid either way.
Rotten tomatoes usually matches my personal tastes pretty well. Their Critics Consensus summaries are pretty blunt and entertaining sometimes. Here's the one for Fantastic Four (2015). "Dull" is my favorite part. "Dull and downbeat, this Fantastic Four proves a woefully misguided attempt to translate a classic comic series without the humor, joy, or colorful thrills that made it great."
The only way Rotten Tomatoes is useful is if you look only at the negative ratings. All kinds of horrible schlock that has mass appeal gets "certified fresh." But isolating negative reviews: If idiots dislike it then it's probably good; If the negative reviews sound cogent then it's probably bad.
[1]: http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/battlefield-earth-2000
my favorite bit: "The director, Roger Christian, has learned from better films that directors sometimes tilt their cameras, but he has not learned why."
The think to do is find a few reviewers who resonate with you and keep tabs on them. I mostly just see what Armond White tells me to see.
http://www.ew.com/article/2014/01/13/armond-white-kicked-out...
http://www.avclub.com/article/armond-white-claims-he-was-kic...
http://www.slashfilm.com/armond-white-prevents-toy-story-3-f...
* The rating will be very high around release time, then drop a point or two after a few weeks * The top 1-2 reviews will be 9-10 star. After that will follow a large number of reviews saying the movie was terrible.
I first noticed this with movies that I disliked, and couldn't believe their high imdb rating. For example, I loathed American Hustle, and it had that same pattern.
That movie was around 8.4 when first out, and had a ten star review on top. (I've now noticed the ten star review is gone.)
The think to do is find a few reviewers who resonate with you and keep tabs on them. I mostly just see what Armond White tells me to see.
Really? He's well-known for picking contrarian views just to get hits, causes problems at events, and is pretty much shunned by the film community. Even Ebert called him a "troll". http://www.ew.com/article/2014/01/13/armond-white-kicked-out... http://www.avclub.com/article/armond-white-claims-he-was-kic... http://www.slashfilm.com/armond-white-prevents-toy-story-3-f...
The posts there are so blatantly advertising it's insulting, though it seems the mods are in on it, they have no interest in changing anything.
Their average customer is a person that sees all the big blockbuster movies. They are not discerning about what they see and they are not critical viewers.
Comparing these people's reviews to the professionals on Rotten Tomatoes is a little silly. As mentioned, Fandango has no motive to reduce the ratings, the more "must see" movies there are, the more money they make.
edit having read more of this article now, I see the issue with Fandango's rounding. Pretty lame.